Hi Charles,
The idea of using Expert Advisors is to let them do the trading without having to be manually manipulated. It is a matter of putting trust in the EA’s. Here is what to do:
Demo test your EA’s like you have been doing. Then move the top 1 , 2, or 3 to a second demo account which acts like a live account until you feel confident to trust the EA’s to do the trading. In the second demo account set the SL so that your account will not lose more than 5% of the account balance. I usually set mine to not lose more than 3% to give me some extra risk protection. Once you have been successful demo trading then move to a live account.
Here is what I have been doing: On October 27 I started a 10K live demo FTMO Challenge. I installed all 7 EA’s and set the Lot size to 0.05 lots. I am using the Challenge to test the EA’s because doing it in the FREE demo account interrupts the testing after 14 days. I also wanted to test the EA’s in exactly the same environment I will be using for passing the Challenge. I have kept the lot size to a small value during testing so that drawdowns don’t do much damage to the account where at the same time I can collect information on how the EA’s are performing. The chart below shows the performance of the 7 EAs since October 27. In the chart I see the collective trading of the 7 EAs have been going through a period of drawdown. I will continue testing using I see the chart start to show profit. Once the chart starts to show profit then I will select the top 3 and move the lot size to 1.0 lots.
Alan,